


15 Minutes

by Oliviet



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bus Crash, F/M, Normal is the Watchword, One Shot, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliviet/pseuds/Oliviet
Summary: He’s sitting home alone on his couch, debating taking Kendall up on her offer to come over, when he hears the news. A bus crash full of Neptune High students traveling back from Shark Field. Only one survivor in critical condition. Identity currently unknown.His friends had been on that field trip. Veronica had been on that field trip.Inspired by this tweet of mine: "Do you think there was a moment where Logan thought Veronica died in the bus crash? He knew she was on the field trip & Dick doesn’t mention her being in the limo so he thinks the worst & it guts him until he realizes otherwise & the relief makes him want to hug her but he can’t"
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 13
Kudos: 100





	15 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty short, but I couldn't get the thought out of my head and then I mentioned it on Twitter and other people couldn't get it out of their head, so I made it into a small one shot.

He’s sitting home alone on his couch, debating taking Kendall up on her offer to come over, when he hears the news. A bus crash full of Neptune High students traveling back from Shark Field. Only one survivor in critical condition. Identity currently unknown.

His friends had been on that field trip. _Veronica_ had been on that field trip.

He feels sick, the bile already rising into his throat. They can’t all be dead. He can’t lose all of them at once. He is so damned tired of losing people.

The phrase “only one survivor” circulates in his head on a loop as he rushes into the kitchen to retch into the trashcan just in time. How does he wake up from this nightmare that has become his life? How does he make this kind of pain stop?

Logan eyes the bottle of whiskey sitting out on the counter when his phone rings. The noise startles him and he wonders if this is _the call_ telling him the last few people he cares about are dead.

Dick’s name flashes across the screen. Did someone find his phone? Is he the sole survivor?

“Hello?” he answers wearily, not knowing what to expect on the other end of the call.

“Dude, you’re not gonna believe this,” Dick’s voice filters through the other line, sounding like it always does.

Logan grips the edge of the countertop, exhaling a shaky breath. His friend seems completely fine. Had there been multiple buses on this field trip?

“How were you not on that bus?” Logan asks.

“Oh, so you’ve heard? It was wild, man. The whole bus just went right over the cliff and –”

“Dick,” Logan grits out, needing answers about who’s still alive. “Why weren’t you on the bus?”

“Oh, right yeah I took the limo. So anyway, there was all this smoke and –”

“Dick,” Logan cuts him off again, not even bothering to ask him where the hell a limo came from. “Who else was in the limo?”

“Uhh Beaver, Duncan, Gia, the usual crowd. So, anyway –”

“Gia? Who the hell is Gia?”

“New girl. She’s totally hot. Now will you let me finish my story?”

Dick rambles on about the smoke and this Gia girl getting over emotional, but Logan gets lost in his own thoughts. He hadn’t mentioned Veronica being in that limo. Would she be considered part of that “usual crowd” in Dick’s eyes? If Duncan was in the limo, she’d be with him, wouldn’t she? She had to be safe, she just had to –

“What about Veronica?” Logan asks, interrupting him again.

“What about her?”

He scrubs a hand over his face, his frustration mounting. He gets that the two of them have been icy toward each other since their break-up. But that doesn’t change the fact that he still cares about her. It doesn’t mean that he wants her _dead_.

“Was she in the limo?” he clarifies.

“Nah, she wasn’t with us. Opted to forgo riding in style.”

The phone drops out of his hand and he has to brace himself against the counter. He feels like he’s going to puke again.

She wasn’t in the limo.

She was on the bus.

She’s either dead or the sole survivor in critical condition.

He can’t do this.

Logan turns toward the trashcan and retches again. He feels weak in the knees and slides down to the floor. They weren’t supposed to end like this. They were supposed to have more time. She was supposed to come back to him someday. He had been sure of it.

What was the last thing he said to her? An insult? A jabbing remark?

No.

_I’m gonna miss you._

He’d meant it as a joke. A way to try and get under her skin. But now –

_Shit._

He feels like he’s going to start crying. She can’t be gone. Not like this. _She_ was the one who was there for him when his mom died. _She_ was the one who was there for him when he found out his father had killed Lilly. _She_ is the one who holds him when he’s at his most vulnerable and lets him break down without question. Who’s going to do that for him when _she’s_ the one who’s gone?

“Logan? Logan, you still there?” he’s faintly aware of Dick trying to get his attention from his dropped cell phone a few inches away.

He picks it back up, intending to tell Dick to leave him alone so he can drink himself into a stupor in peace, when his friend keeps talking. “She wasn’t on the bus either. She was with that PCH’er on his bike.”

Now he feels like all of the wind has been knocked out of him. “She’s alive? She’s okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, dude. Didn’t mean to freak you out like that. I forgot you and Duncan are still battling for dominance over her. What either of you see in her though I –”

“Jesus,” Logan curses, slumping back against the base of the counter.

For around 15 minutes this afternoon, he thought that Veronica Mars was dead. And that single thought had nearly destroyed him, their current icy conditions aside. He didn’t still want to care about her this much. He didn’t still want to feel like he was in love with her. He wanted to move on like she supposedly had. But all she had to do was look at him these days and it instantly made him want her back. Even if she was only looking at him to yell at him.

She was not an easy person to get over. Not when she’d spent the first half of the summer at his side, standing by him as his rock. Not when he still considered the sound of her laugh to still be one of his favorite sounds. Not when he still thought about her when he was fooling around with Kendall.

He still had it bad for her, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. At least now he actually had time. Time that for 15 minutes, he thought was lost forever.

When he sees her flash of blonde hair the next day, flitting around Duncan at his locker, his first instinct is to run up to her and hug her. To hold her in his arms, breathing in her familiar scent, and whispering “you’re okay” into her hair. But he refrains himself, watching as Duncan slides an arm around her shoulders. She’s not his to hold like that anymore. A part of him almost wonders if she ever was.

Their eyes meet across the hallway, and he can tell that she can still read him like an open book. She nods to him like she’s trying to convey to him that she’s okay, while Duncan leads her off to Calculus.

The fact that she still understands him even when she’s trying to play it off like she hates him, grips at his chest. Maybe there’s hope for them yet.

* * *

It’s not until about a year later, that he finally brings it up. She came back to him, just like he’d hoped that she would. She’s curled up against his side, fighting sleep, as he watches the subtle rise and fall of her chest.

“I thought were you dead,” he says softly.

She scrunches her nose up in confusion, opening one eye to look at him. “Honey, you’re good, but you’re not _that_ good.”

He laughs at that. _Of course_ , she would think his comment was sex related. His dirty mind is rubbing off on her.

“Not now,” he tells her. “After the bus crash. When I first heard. And then Dick called and said you weren’t in the limo with them.”

She sits up, more awake now, and reaches over to cup his face with one of her hands. “I got off the bus.”

“I know that _now_. But for about 15 minutes, I thought that you were dead.”

She kisses his cheek before curling back down against his side.

“And it was such a weird feeling,” he continues, stroking his hand up her arm. “Because we were fighting, but I still had feelings for you. And for it to just end that way…”

“It didn’t end,” she says softly. “I’m right here. Naked. In your bed.”

He kisses the crown of her head. “I wanted to hug you when I saw you the next day. Tell you that I was glad you were okay. Tell you that when I jokingly told you that I would miss you right before you left for the field trip, I didn’t want to actually mean it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Please, like you were going to let me touch you.”

She presses herself even closer against him. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to think that somebody you love died. It isn’t fun.”

She’s referring to the night she thought her dad had died. The night he’d silently resigned himself to take care of her for as long she’d let him in her father’s absence.

“Ah so she acknowledges my love for her. At long last,” Logan teases.

“Shut up,” she grumbles, stretching one arm out across his chest.

“For what it’s worth, I’m really glad you didn’t die that day.”

“Me too.”

“I’m also glad you came to your senses and came back to me.”

She huffs at his phrasing, but concedes anyway. “Me too.”

He lets them fall back into silence, content to finally fall asleep himself when her voice brings him back from the brink of sleep.

“Logan?” she asks, tentatively.

He hums in response, sleepily skimming a hand up her bare back.

“I’m glad I have you too.”


End file.
